The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol 106, 587-591, Copyright © 1993 by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Western Thoracic Surgical Association
Presence of calcium in the vessel walls after end-to-end arterial anastomoses with polydioxanone and polypropylene sutures in growing dogs
B Gersak
Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, University Medical Centre, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The presence of calcium in the vessel walls after end-to-end arterial
anastomoses performed with polydioxanone and polypropylene interrupted
sutures was studied in 140 anastomoses in 35 10-week-old German shepherd
dogs. Histologic examination with hematoxylin and eosin, van Gieson, and
von Kossa staining techniques was performed after the animals were killed 6
months after the operation. Ketamine hydrochloride was used as an
anesthetic agent. At the start of the investigation the dogs weighed 14.5
+/- 2.6 kg (mean +/- standard deviation, n = 35), and after 6 months they
weighed 45.3 +/- 3.1 kg (mean +/- standard deviation, n = 35). The diameter
of the sutured arteries in the first operation was 2.6 +/- 0.5 mm (mean +/-
standard deviation, n = 140). With each dog, both brachial and both femoral
arteries were used--one artery for each different type of suture. In
different dogs, different arteries were used for the same type of suture.
The prevalence of calcifications after 6 months was determined from the
numeric density of calcifications with standard stereologic techniques. The
sutured and sutureless parts taken from longitudinal sections from each
artery were studied, and t test values were calculated as follows: In
paired samples, statistically significant differences in numerical density
of calcifications were seen between sutured and sutureless arterial parts
for both materials (sutureless part versus part with polydioxanone sutures,
p < 0.001, n = 70; sutureless part versus part sutured with
polypropylene sutures, p < 0.01, n = 70); however, in independent
samples no statistically significant differences in numerical density of
calcifications were seen between the polydioxanone and polypropylene groups
for sutured (p > 0.05, n = 70) and sutureless parts (p > 0.05, n =
70).
